Apple Pushes for Patent Damages Hearing, Samsung Stalls

Apple filed a motion on Monday in hopes of getting a case management conference on April 3 to push forward the new trial in the patent infringement case it won against Samsung last summer. The new trial is intended to determine damages in the case, and Samsung is requesting a stay to stall the court proceedings.

Judge Koh ordered the new trial after throwing out part of the US$1 billion in damages a Jury awarded Apple after ruling Samsung is infringing on several of its mobile device patents. The order vacated the damages on 14 of the products listed in the case because the Jury improperly assigned dollar amounts.

"As a result, a new damages trial on those products must be held, and it may very well result in hundreds of millions of dollars of additional damages in Apple's favor," said Florian Mueller of Foss Patents.

Samsung wants to postpone that trial as long as possible, but Apple's legal team argued that the law states the case needs to move forward. In this case, it's Apple's appeal over the denial for a permanent injunction blocking the import and sale of certain Samsung devices that should compel the court to keep the case moving, and that any appeals to the new damages order would cause additional unnecessary delays.

Apple said in its Monday filing,

Apple believes that until the damages retrial is held and supplemental damages are decided, appellate review of the March 1 Order will not be obtainable. No final judgment exists to ground an appeal because the March 1 Order directs further proceedings in this Court.

Samsung followed up with its own motion to stay the new trial because it plans to request a partial final ruling that it can appeal. The electronics maker hopes to keep a stay in place until it finishes its appeal process.

Apple and Samsung have been fighting in courts in several countries since 2011 over claims they are infringing on each other's mobile device patents. Apple's highest profile win came last August when a U.S. Federal Court Jury ruled it wasn't infringing on any Samsung patents, while Samsung was infringing on several of its patents. That's the case where Judge Koh vacated part of the damages that Apple was awarded.

A hearing date hasn't been agreed to yet, and it's clear Apple will continue to push on Judge Koh to keep the case moving forward while Samsung will keep fighting to stop it from proceeding.

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The tactics Apple and Samsung are using are pretty straight forward: Apple is trying to keep its cases against Samsung moving in hopes of getting injunctions it can use to stop the Galaxy smartphone and tablet line from making it to store shelves. Samsung wants to delay in court as much as possible so it can keep selling its Android OS-based products without any injunction worries.